Remy and Angelo, Sunday night

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Remy makes an unannounced visit to give Angelo his own take on recent events. He may even get somewhere.



The mansion had one of the most elaborate security systems outside of a nuclear weapon facility in the country. Overlapping zones of contact, second third and fourth tier depth in scanning, and every ingenious detection method that Forge's mutant ability to come up with. During his last analysis, it wasn't hard to state that getting into the mansion undetected was harder than getting into the White House.

And yet, alarms blissfully quiet, there sat Remy LeBeau on Angelo's windowsill, dangling one leg outside and smoking a cigarette.
"Salut."
Angelo blinked at him for a few seconds, standing uncertainly in the doorway, because he knew well enough that shouldn't be possible. His suitemate had designed the security systems, after all. "Uh... hi."

Remy took another long drag from his cigarette and blew it out into the frosty air. "Dis is a nice view. Forgot how peaceful de grounds look from up here. Not de same in de city." Remy reached into his coat, and tossed a notebook at Angelo. "Give dat to Forge? It's my notes on his new security upgrades. He's getting better. Dere's a decent criminal mind in dat head of his for security."

Lebeau pitched his cigarette off into the snow and stepped down from the windowsill. "'nother thing. 'manda asked Remy to do some follow up on dat Trask femme. Nasty piece of work. Here's what Remy found out so far."

LeBeau handed over a folder, but when opened, it was empty.

Angelo looked down at it, then warily back up. "Okay... is this you sayin' there's nothin' we don't already know, or you're not gonna give it to me?"

"Neither. Dere's nothing else to find. No leads, no other information dat we can follow back to her or her plans right now. Any idea why dat might be de case?"

"I don't know, maybe 'cause she's holed up somewhere with the Chechen psycho where the Russians an' any given cops can't find them?"

"Dat's right, and de one location dat we knew 'bout before, dat we could have put under surveillance and generated a whole bunch of new intel from? Well, dat location is now pretty much certain to be never used by her or her people 'gain." Remy's slight smile hadn't changed, but it held no warmth. "Care to guess why?"

"...yeah, okay", he said tiredly. "Don't think I need to."

"Thinking is a nice change." Remy took the folder back, folding it up and putting it into his jacket. "'manda told me 'bout what happened; what you did. You taken any time to consider it yet? Analyse things?"

"What sort of things?" Yeah, he'd considered it, but of all the people he might owe answers, Remy wasn't one of them.

"What you'd do when you got there? How you were planning to neutralize a half dozen armed guards with just a sword? Avoid capture by the police following the attack? Hide or destroy the body to avoid going to jail for murder?"

"There was no point", Angelo said heavily, "analysin' that stuff after they'd brought me back. As for the first, it was a house in the suburbs. Armed guards'd be kind of conspicuous, don't you think?"

"A couple of micro uzis fit neatly under a jacket, homme, and a half decent shot going to take you out before you get a chance to stick a sword into someone." Remy said. "Guess de point is dat you didn't have a plan. Wouldn't be much of a comfort to Moira and Rachel wit' Nate in jail for de rest of his life because you didn't stop to consider what you were doing."

"Yeah, you know what, if that's all you came for, I've heard it. Three times." His voice was flat, but he clearly wasn't in the mood for yet another lecture.

"Learned anything yet?" Remy shrugged. "You put yourself, de school, Elpis and de X-Men in danger because you were mad. As a by-product, you also flushed you best chance at actually getting revenge and put one of my people in danger. And all you've said is, what, doesn't matter? No sense analyzing de fact dat you didn't have de slightest clue what you decided you had de right to risk de lives of every student in de place for? Doesn't sound like it."

"You know, I don't remember invitin' you in here", Angelo said, still flatly. "An' I know what I did it for, in detail. Sure, I wasn't thinkin' past that, but it wasn't for nothin'."

"'course you didn't, homme. Remy rarely is found only where I'm invited." Remy shook out another cigarette, casually. "Guess de thing dat I was wondering is what it felt like to get 'manda killed?"

Angelo stared at him, his shock blatant if only for a few moments before he got it under control. "I... she's fine. I wouldn't've taken her there like that, an' she was with Scott an' Cain when she came..."

"Non, I meant when you killed Trask wit' dat sword." Remy pointed to the weapon, back in its customary place on the wall. "De police arrested you, first degree murder. Trask's allies, who none of us knew 'bout waited, and one day after visiting you in jail before de trial, dey gunned her down as a message to us. Remy and Pete managed to track dem down, but not before dey leaked all sorts of information tying Nate back to his past life as a mercenary in Europe. Elpis suddenly has a mercenary for a founder and a murderer for his deputy, and gets shut out of most of de countries it operates in, putting de Pack back into de merc game 'gain. Meanwhile, Xavier's in danger of closing for harbouring what dey now call a 'terrorist', and when Magneto choses dat time to strike at de White House, well, de Mutant Registration Act turned out to be a big election issue."

Remy's voice was calm, almost whimsical as he outlined a cascading list of horrors for Angelo.

Angelo was just staring at him by the end of it. "That's only one future. You've got no way to know it'd go down like that - I'd tell them why I did it, for one thing, so it'd be a revenge kick. Might not even be first-degree if they believed me enough. An' Nate got his pardon long ago."

Remy actually laughed. "Tell dat to, well, half of Africa. And you right, dat's only one future. Dere's de other in which you got gunned down coming in de door, and dey planted information on you body dat linked de X-Men and de Brotherhood, leading eventually to Xavier's arrest and de closing of de school. Or where you got taken hostage, and during de rescue attempt, de Blackbird went down, killing half de team in one blow."

He paused, and held up one finger. "Dat's what I think 'bout, Angelo. Every action has a consequence, and you don't get to control dem. All you can do is try to think you way through de possibilities when making you decisions. Dere's plenty of people dat don't bother thinking 'bout dese things; dey follow orders without caring why dey been issued, or what dey mean. Or only thing dat matters to dem are dere own reasons for doing something. Money, power, revenge, fun, all de same. Long go', one of dose people was Gambit. One was Cable. One was Wisdom. An awful lot of people paid for our decisions."

Angelo looked down, now, staring at the floor instead. "...It wasn't like that. It wasn't all about revenge. She's dangerous t'more than just Nate."

"So are you, homme." Remy shook his head. "Angelo, Remy de last person to give you some lecture 'bout upholding de ideals of de school's ethics or crap like dat. But you decided to be an X-Man. You decided to be a member of Elpis. Dat means you're trusted to consider your role in both dose things before you take action. 'Ro trusts you to remember dat you're part of de team. Nate trusts you to act in his name. Dat means what you do will reflect on dem, even if you intend it or not."

Remy lit the cigarette with the end of his finger, taking a moment to let his comment linger. "I trust 'manda. I know dat what we do, de things I send her on likely will get her killed one day. I trust her to do and act like she's been trained. Dat way, we can at least work on de likely consequences if something goes wrong. If she just went off on her own, de whole team could end up crashing down before we even know what's happening. Dat make any sense?"

"...yeah, it does", he said slowly. "Guess I need to think about what things come first."

"Angelo, you need to determine what kind of person you want to be. Dere's plenty of good you can do just focusing on results on you own if dat's who you really are. But you can't be an X-Man one day, and an assassin de next. Whatever you choose to be is what de people around you going to have to trust you to be." Remy settled his trenchcoat more easily. "If you can't do dat, you should let 'manda go. She went down dis road wit' Manuel once, and it nearly killed her. She'd do it for you too, if you let it happen. She deserves better den dat."

Remy walked back to the window, stuck his head out for a moment and looked around. "She needs to trust you to be de person you claim to be. Whoever dat is doesn't matter as much as long as you believe it too." With a quick movement, the Cajun was gone, leaving nothing but a faint wisp of smoke behind.